Inhalants of Choice Are Only a Store Away

Inhalants are popular because they’re cheap, accessible and perceived as safe.

Sniffing often begins innocently, said Lawrence Brain, a psychiatrist who specializes in adolescent drug abuse at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington. “A kid gets hold of gasoline from a mower and starts inhaling that, or magic markers . . . “

The same youngster may walk into a hardware store, open up a can of paint thinner, put some of it on his jacket and leave, said Officer Tony Werner of the Anne Arundel County (Md.) police. “You don’t need a bag; you can just walk around pretending you’re wiping your nose.”

The youth then may proceed to the potpourri scent of an air freshener. If he can’t find it in the house pantry, he can acquire it at any grocery store for $1.35. A cigarette lighter containing butane can deliver the same effect for $2.39.

Convenience stores in Anne Arundel County report that on Friday nights they often sell out of the fluid, Werner said. When a 15-year-old cheerleader collapsed and died after sniffing butane, county police tried to discourage store owners from selling the fluid to minors, Werner said, “but we couldn’t make them, because it’s legal.”

“(Inhalants) are kids’ way around illegal drugs,” Werner continued. “Kids don’t have to worry about going out on the street, or getting shot; they can just walk in a market and get it.”

And if they are caught, they have a ready excuse--”I smoke” or “I’m working on a model airplane”--said Fairfax (Va.) police officer Bill Baitinger, former liaison to Chantilly High School. The last two school years, he said, butane and glue were the inhalants of choice there.

Sometimes no money is needed; Lauren Diedrich of Lackey High School in Charles County, Md., said she has friends who steal Freon from a neighbor who works at an air-conditioning company. Peter Tretick, another Lackey student, said he knows a park where a tank of nitrous oxide is readily available.

“Whippets” of nitrous oxide, manufactured for whipping-cream dispensers, also can be purchased at retail stores and are passed around freely at concerts and all-night dance parties.

Trent Tschirgi, assistant director of the office of substance-abuse studies at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, said he was searching for a seltzer charger at a specialty store in his neighborhood mall when he spied six rows of nitrous oxide bottles.

“Mostly it’s teen-agers who buy this stuff,” a clerk told him. “They put it in a balloon at a party and snort it, and it doesn’t hurt anybody.”